Articles by: Roberta Cutillo

  • Dining in & out

    Tradition and New (Female) Faces: Meet the Future of Italian Wine

    The 34th edition of the Italian Wine & Food Association’s Gala Italia, held at Il Gattopardo Restaurant on March 26th, introduced over one hundred journalists and members of the press to representatives from a variety of Italian wineries, representing the quality and innovation of the Italian wine industry.

    In fact, this year, the more established wineries that traditionally participate in the event, such as Antinori, Ferrari, and Travaglini, were joined by more emerging ones. “We are in front of a wine such as Antinori, which has been existing for the past 600 years but we also have houses that were born two years ago.” commented Lucio Caputo, founder and president of the Italian Wine & Food Institute, a non-profit founded in 1970 to promote quality Italian wine. “There’s space for everyone.”

    Of particular note was the presence amongst the representatives of young women such as Sonia Peratoner of Maso Grener, a small house founded by her family in 2013 in the region of Trentino Alto Adige, and Alessia Travaglini, who represented the fifth generation of the more established Travaglini house from the Gattinara area in Piemonte.

    “I’m very proud to be part of this family and of this world” said ms. Travaglini “It’s a challenge for me to bring forward the tradition and passion of the house on one hand, but also to do so as a woman. It’s important to change the role of women in this industry.” In fact, until very recently, the wine industry was represented almost exclusively by men.

    However, many agree that things are changing. Ms. Peratoner, who like ms. Travaglini is finishing her studies as she begins to work for her family’s business, remarked that she believes this is a good time “more women and young people are participating in the wine industry, particularly in sales and communication,” she noted.

    Overall, the wine industry is undergoing great changes. For this reason, Italian wine producers who wish to sell to the United States have to keep focusing on quality while also paying attention to the trends and demands of the American market. This is essential in order for Italy to maintain and perhaps improve its standing as one of the main wine exporters to the US.

    Italy is currently second, right below France, whose export numbers were heavily boosted by the increasing demand for rose’, a trend that Italian wine producers are beginning to tap into, as witnessed by the presence of several bottles of rose’ or “rosati” throughout the stands.

    “Rose’ is having a huge success lately” Dr. Caputo commented “There seems to be an interest in wines that are easier to drink.”

    “The consumers’ tastes, particularly regarding food, are influencing wine,” he continued, “we don’t eat like we used to. You can’t drink wines like Barolo or Brunello with salad.”

    Judging by the event’s attendance, there certainly seems to be an interest in Italian wine from the part of the American audience. And the influx of younger generations, of women, and of new approaches and ideas could be exactly what the Italian wine industry needs in order to evolve and prosper both at home but especially abroad.

     

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    The Italian Wine & Food Institute, headquartered in New York, is a non-profit organization that was founded in 1983 for the enhancement of the image and prestige of Italian wines, gastronomy and food products in the United States.

    To further this goal, the Institute organizes educational and promotional events, and carries out public relations activities to educate American consumers about the high quality of Italian wine and food.
  • Life & People

    "The Smile of Imperfect Women” by Elvira Frojo : Discussing Happiness and Well-Being Amongst Women

    On Saturday, we had the pleasure of welcoming lawyer, author and mother Elvira Frojo to our headquarters to discuss her new book "The Smile of Imperfect Women: Journey into the Alphabet of Well-being" with I-Italy’s Editor-in-Chief Letizia Airos and writer and journalist Francesca di Matteo. The book, itself an exploration of happiness and well-being and how to achieve them, served as a starting point to dig deeper into these themes, focusing particularly on how they relate to women.

    What does happiness look like for a woman today? How can we obtain it? What are the challenges we face? These are some of the questions raised in Frojo’s book. The answers, as we witnessed during the open discussion are varied. “This book is absolutely not prescriptive” the author stressed right from the beginning. Rather, it raises questions, important ones and proposes examples, methods of how to approach them.

    Each chapter is named after a word from the “Alphabet of well-being”, which cover various aspects of our lives, ranging from “Abbraccio e Tenerezza” (hugs and tenderness) to “Zenzero e Limone” (ginger and lemon).

    Though some of the issues raised can undoubtedly be applied to men as well, (after all, most humans strive for happiness and well-being) the point of the book and of the discussion is to explore what these things mean for women in today’s society.

    Discussing freedom for example, raises specific debates when looked at from a female perspective. It can lead to the discussion of motherhood and of the balance between working and being a mother, a difficult and controversial topic, as many of these can be.

    The theme of feminine beauty is also imbued with distinct connotations, part of a long ongoing discourse, until quite recently exclusively dictated by men. Here instead it is being approached by a woman for women and that’s probably why it can finally be centered around a crucial but until recently repudiated concept: imperfection.

    “As I began to write the book” Frojo explained “I automatically wanted to address women.” And she does so using the familiar “tu” in Italian, drawing the reader in, talking to her like a friend.

    Perhaps the most interesting part was opening up the conversation to the audience, comprised mostly (though not exclusively) of women, who reacted to the topics discussed, added their own stories and perspectives, sometimes with great fervor.

    That was the ultimate goal of this discussion: on the one hand to present and promote women, their stories, their accomplishments (which too often get overlooked) while at the same time giving women a platform to finally express themselves, share their ideas, be heard and learn from one another.

     
  • NYC Subway Plan by Massimo Vignelli, 1972
    Art & Culture

    The Influence of Italian Graphic Designers on American Visual Culture

    The purpose of “Italian Types: Graphic Designers From Italy in America”, an exhibition hosted by the Italian Cultural Institute in New York and curated by Patricia Belen, Greg D’Onofrio, and Melania Gazzotti, is to bring awareness to the work of Italian graphic designers in the US and to their lasting impact on American and global visual culture.

     

    The show features sixteen designers who contributed to commercial graphic design in America in the pre and post World War II periods: Fortunato Depero, Paolo Garretto, Costantino Nivola, Leo Lionni, George Giusti, Albe Steiner, Erberto Carboni, Romaldo “Aldo” Giurgola, Roberto Mango, Giovanni Pintori, Bruno Munari, Franco Grignani, Heinz Waibl, Giulio Cittato, Bob Noorda and Massimo Vignelli. The works exhibited, all created roughly between 1928 and 1980, come in a variety of formats from posters, to magazines, albums, and book covers.

     

    Beyond highlighting the overall impact of Italian designers on the American landscape, the show also tells the unique stories of each artist. Oftentimes, these read as typical immigrant tales, since many of the featured designers came to America in search of work opportunities. As renowned art director, writer and graphic design expert Steven Heller says in his introduction for the exhibition’s catalog “New York was a city of immigrant art and design.”

     

    Some of their stories end in success, but that is not always the case. For example, the now well-known Italian Futurist Fortunato Depero, the first artist presented in the exhibition, first moved to New York in 1927 where he set up his studio/gallery, the “Casa Futurista Depero” (Futurist House).

     

    He worked for important clients including The New Yorker and Vanity Fair, and showed his works in Manhattan Art Galleries, garnering positive reviews from important publications such as the New York Times. However, these were the years of the Great Depression and Depero eventually had to move back to Italy in 1930 due to economic hardships. After the war, in 1947, he tried to come back to the United States but had difficulty finding work and finally returned to his hometown in Rovereto.

     

    Other designers fared better. Leo Lionni, for example, initially came to the US in 1939 in order to escape racial persecution in Italy. He quickly started working for important clients, then later on opened his own studio in New York and eventually was appointed as art director of “Fortune” magazine, a position he held for 11 years, meanwhile doing freelance work for Tim-Life publishing group, Italian manufacturing group Olivetti, and the MoMA.

     

    Another success story is that of Costantino Nivola who moved to New York in 1939 after marrying Ruth Guggenheim. There he became the artistic director of “Interiors” and “Progressive Architecture” and worked on numerous public and private commissions, including the relief of the Olivetti Showroom in New York. He returned to his native Sardinia for Fortune Magazine to create works for the Rockefeller Foundation’s anti-malaria campaign and eventually began teaching in top universities around the US and Europe.

     

    Others, like the prominent designer, artist, children’s book author Bruno Munari, never lived in the United States but showed their work there and worked with American clients. Munari’s work was exhibited in Leo Lionni’s New York gallery as well as at MoMA. He also taught a course in design and visual communication at Harvard and many of his books were translated and sold in the US but remained based in Milan throughout his life.

     

    In fact, during the 50s and 60s, as some Italian designers were getting more and more commissions by important American clients, prominent Italian companies such as Pirelli and Olivetti (for which many of the exhibited artists worked at some point in their career) were also beginning to invest in designers, both Italian and foreign, turning cities like Milan into fervent creative hubs and bolstering the image of Italian design.

     

    The exhibition ends with pieces by Massimo Vignelli, whose important work, particularly his 1972 design for the NYC subway map, perfectly render just how influential these Italian designers were and continue to be. Like much of the works present in the exhibition, Vignelli’s subway map remains to this day striking for its simplicity, elegance and eternal modernity.

     

    “Italian Types: Graphic Designers From Italy in America” is on view at the Italian Cultural Institute in New York (upon reservation) until May 02, 2019 and a panel with the contributors of the catalog will be held at Cooper Union on April 3, 2019.

     
  • Life & People

    Honoring George Hirsch at the Italy Run 2019 Kick-Off

    Consul General Francesco Genuardi officially announced that the “Italy Run”, an initiative first launched last year on June 2nd to celebrate the “Festa della Repubblica” in partnership with the New York Road Runners organization, will be coming back this year. This 5 mile run through Central Park “is a way to show what Italy is today and the love of Italy for NY and, I think, the love of New York towards Italy” the Consul said.

    Michael Capiraso, the CEO and President of New York Road Runners, remarked on the “great involvement” witnessed last year. “As an Italian growing up in Jersey City and coming to NY I always dreamed of having an Italy Run” he said. And eventually, he turned to George Hirsch, magazine publisher, runner, Italy lover, and “passionate supporter of the italian community in New York” as Consul Genuardi said, to make it happen.

    In conferring to him the official title of “Ufficiale dell’Ordine della Stella d’Italia”, the consul explains how beyond having played a central role in “attracting runners from all over the world not only to the New York Marathon but to the world of marathons in general”, Mr. Hirsch has been instrumental in the creation and organization of the Italy Run, and an overall “Ambassador of Italy and Italian culture.”

    George Hirsch’s love for Italy is in fact apparent from the moment he begins his speech, which he makes in Italian. He defines himself as “A New Yorker (born 10 minutes walking from here) but with an Italian heart.” He recounts how he fell in love with the country during his very first time there, and has always gone back since “for work and for vacation, many vacations, in every part of Italy.”

    George contributed greatly to the promotion of Italy in the United States. Notably, he was the chairman and publisher of the English language edition of “La Cucina Italiana”, Italy’s oldest and largest food and cooking magazine. He also recalls having participated in the founding of the Italian magazine Panorama back in the ‘60s.

    The greatest memory he shares though is perhaps one from a recent visit to Naples, where he lived the first time he was in Italy as a young US Marine. “I found the house where I lived the first time, in 1959.” He recognized the house, even his very apartment. In the one next door there was a woman - “making pizza, what else?” he jokes - who invited him in for “a pleasant and nostalgic visit.”

    “It’s not surprising that I always feel at home in Italy” he concludes, warmly and sincerely thanking the consulate and everyone in it for his well-deserved award.

    And thanks to people like Mr. Hirsch, who through his work at numerous publications such as “The Runner” and “Runner’s World”, promoted running and turned it into the global sensation it is today, many people are expected to participate in this year’s “Italy Run”. In fact, though this may come as a surprise to some, Italians, especially those living in New York, love to run. According to the Consul “Italians are a significant part of the New York Marathon and the number of italian runners keeps growing every year. Italy is the second most represented country in the marathon, after the United States.”

    “Italy Run” is also an occasion to show a healthy Italian lifestyle, as was emphasized by Aldo Uvo, CEO of Ferrero and a runner himself. In his video message, the latter talked about Nutella Cafe, the event’s main sponsor, as a “piazza” that wishes to bring together energy and passion, the two main ingredients of nutella, but also “the same ingredients of a great country, Italy, and a great city.”

    There will be a festival after the race, with other Italian brands, such as Colavita, Luxottica, and Clemente Italian Bakery from New Jersey, “a new entry representing a lot of Italian Americans in NJ.” The event will also be linked to a charity organization, “The Friends of San Patrignano”, who help those suffering from drug and alcohol dependency. It will be an occasion to bring people together and show the world the healthier side of Italian life.

    If you want to participate you can register online >>
  • Facts & Stories

    Improving the Image of Italian Wine

    Italy holds the top positions when it comes to wine imports in the US. However, the value and image of Italian wine in the United States has not been consolidated yet, particularly when compared to that of France.

    To address this discrepancy between the true quality and perceived image of Italian wine, institutions have been carrying out the campaign “Italian Wine: Taste the Passion” as part of a three-year project to promote Italian wine in the US. Here are the results of the year 2018.

    What came out of the report by the Italian Trade Agency on the progress of the campaign “Italian Wine: Taste the Passion”, which is part of the three-year “Progetto Vino USA”, supported by the Ministry of Economic Development to promote Italian wine in the US, is essentially that things are going well but there is still a lot of work to be done.

    The campaign is aimed at elevating the perception of Italian wine, bettering its placement, and increasing average sales prices to reflect the high quality of Italian wine. “In International classifications and blind tastings all over the world, Italian wines always come out on top”, Italian Trade Agency Director Maurizio Forte explained “so it’s clear that there is no issue of quality. And, our quality comes at much more accessible prices. There’s a perception issue. We have to push in this direction.”

    “Italian Wine” operated on many channels, by launching a promotional video, in different formats for different media, by being featured on specialty publications such as Wine Enthusiast, Market Watch and Wine Spectator, by creating pages on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter and a website >> .  

    Additionally, it adopted other forms of promotion, such as placing a Vino Desk inside New York’s Italian Trade Commission, collaborating with distributors, sellers, and restaurant chains, organizing events across the US, but perhaps most importantly, working on the formation of restaurant workers and sommeliers.

    “When you go to a restaurant in America, usually, if the server or sommelier proposes a wine, you order it.” said Mr. Forte. “When people go to a steakhouse and order a good wine, we have to make it so that people more often think of Italy and not always have the choice fall on a Cabernet from Sonoma or a Great Bordeaux. This work has already been done but there needs to be a bigger push”, he later added, explaining why it is important to train industry professionals to know about the wines of Italy, not just those of France, who yes, beat us as the first overall supplier of wine to the US in 2018.

    While the commerce of Italian wine in the US increased by 6.8% in value and 1.2% in quantity from the previous year in 2018, the overall market value is lower now (at 32%) than it was in 2016 (at 32.4%), when Italy held first place as the US’ main wine supplier. In 2018, Italy was the main supplier of white wine (both in quantity and market value, 40%) and of red wine (quantity and value, 32,5%).

    It was also the main supplier of the sparkling wine category, thanks to the rise in popularity of prosecco but only in terms of quantity, not of value. (Champagne is expensive)

    It is France who held the position as the main supplier of wine overall (quantity and value), thanks largely to its unequaled quotas in the rosé wine category. And French wine indeed has, generally speaking, a better reputation and a higher sales value in the US than Italian wine.

    Well aware that changing the perception and habits of people is not a task that can be achieved overnight, the Italian Trade Commission declared itself satisfied with the outcome of the campaign so far, which gathered “900 million impressions, 85% of which on digital channels” and optimistic about its future.

    “There is no system that can tell you how many sales a social media post produced, you have to make a general analysis based on the overall sales performance” Mr. Forte commented. “Certainly all this communication and promotion has helped.” he added “Sales have gone up. The producers are asking us to continue and on February 14th, there was the Tavolo Vino and the new government has pledged to continue and increase the support to this promotional program.”

     
  • Art & Culture

    Cristiana Pegoraro Brings the Sounds of Narni(a) to Carnegie Hall

    The acclaimed Italian pianist Cristiana Pegoraro delighted the audience of Carnegie Hall last night with her concert “Fantasia Italiana”, which she performed alongside an orchestra composed of selected professors and students of the Narnia Festival and conductor Lorenzo Porzio.

     

    The concert was the New York debut of her project, the Narnia Festival, a “celebration of dance, music, arts, and culture” featuring among other things, world-class musical performances and international educational programs. The festival is held in Narni, Umbria, Ms. Pegoraro’s hometown, and brings together performers, teachers, and students from all over the world.

     

    This year, the festival is launching a series of educational programs and concerts to be held in New York City as well. Last night’s concert marked the beginning of an initiative which Cristiana Pegoraro conceived to give the participants of Narni’s summer program the opportunity to learn and perform in one of the most important cities and on some of the most prestigious stages in the world.

     

    Though the festival is international, the program of last night’s concert “Fantasia Italiana” was all Italian, featuring some of the Greatest classics: “The Four Seasons” by Antonio Vivaldi and three ouvertures from Gioacchino Rossini’s “La Gazza Ladra” (“The Thieving Magpie”), “L’Italiana ad Algeri” (“The Italian Girl in Algiers”), and “Il Barbiere di Siviglia” (“The Barber of Seville”), all adapted to include the piano.

     

    Ms. Pegoraro doesn’t simply play the music, she introduces each piece, recounts the story behind it, explains to the audience what the instruments represent, tells them to listen for the approaching storm, the flowing wind, the slow approach of Summer, the drunken shepherd. She accompanies the spectators on a this musical journey, which is not always easily accessible if you are new to the world of Classical music.

     

    The pianist continues to engage with her audience during the enthusiastically requested encores, for which she plays other great Italian classics but in a playful, lighthearted manner. She invites the conductor Lorenzo Porzio to take over the piano but then begins to join him, first by poking a key, completing a melody here and there, and finally by sitting down next to him to play “à quatre mains.”

     

    During the intermission, the vice-president of the Italian American Committee on Education (IACE),  journalist Maria Teresa Cometto, came onto the stage to present the musician with a plate recognizing the importance of her work in promoting Italian music and culture abroad and in fostering cultural exchanges between Italy and the US. Ms. Pegoraro accepted it inviting the audience to join her in Umbria, “the most beautiful region in Italy” as she calls it, this summer for the eighth season of the Narnia Festival, which will take place from July 17 to August 4, 2019.

     
  • Art & Culture

    Fausto Melotti and Lucio Fontana: New York Exhibitions Paving the Way for Contemporary Italian Artists

    Conceived in dialog with the Met Breuer’s current exhibition “Lucio Fontana: On the Threshold” as well as with “Spatial Explorations” held at the Italian Cultural Institute, the exhibition “Fausto Melotti: Works from the Olnick Spanu Collection” organized by Magazzino Italian Art Foundation at the Consulate General of Italy, introduced new audiences to the work of the Italian Modernist artist, highlighting his connection to Fontana and the influence that both artists have had and continue to have on the Italian and global artistic landscape.

    The Italian Consulate in New York held a closing reception for “Fausto Melotti: Works From the Olnick Spanu Collection”, which it had been hosting since January 28. The exhibition reflected the mission of its organizer, Magazzino Italian Art, a foundation based in Cold Springs, New York, focused on supporting contemporary Italian artists and fostering discussions on Postwar and Contemporary Italian Art in the United States.

    A vision shared by the Consul General of Italy in New York, Francesco Genuardi, who in his speech emphasized the importance of engaging in “cultural diplomacy” and promoting the arts, as well as by the Italian Ambassador to the United States, Armando Varricchio, who also stressed how shows such as this one serve to highlight a characteristic of the Italian DNA, that is the “strive for constant innovation.”

    A characteristic which, as Giorgio Spanu, co-founder with his wife Nancy Olnick of Magazzino Italian Art and owner of the vast collection from which the works on view were selected, emphasized is common to immigrants, which artists like Fontana and Melotti were. They represent how “immigration is an asset.”

    Perhaps the most striking elements of the exhibition were Fausto Melotti’s ceramic works, showcased in the foyer. These seemingly simple yet beautiful glazed vases and pots are a testimony to the artist’s skill, versatility and creative curiosity. They also speak to a new way of perceiving ceramics, as an artform that went beyond the traditional distinction between the “artisan practice of creating useful objects and the fine art tradition of sculpture.”

    Lucio Fontana, the acclaimed founder of Spatialism, until now mostly known for his “slashed” canvases, was also interested in investigating ceramics. Melotti and Fontana were friends, they worked together, particularly in the region Liguria, where they learned and experimented with a local ceramic tradition. “Fontana was primarily a sculptor, he was a pupil of Adolfo Wildt along with Melotti. I have always approached his practice through sculpture”, explains Giorgio Spanu.

    Both Mr. Spanu and Vittorio Calabrese, the director of Magazzino, declared themselves truly satisfied with the exhibition and the response it gathered. Although it was held in the Consulate, a space open to the public only under reservation, the show managed, through special programs and events, to introduce new audiences and collectors to the work of this great Italian artist.

    And as the Italian Ambassador said, shows such as this one and the Met Breuer’s Fontana exhibit are important not for these artists and their legacies but “also for all Italian artists who followed and will follow.” Familiarizing American and international audiences with the Italian Modern and Contemporary art traditions is fundamental for them to understand where living Italian contemporary artists are coming from and truly appreciate their work.

    It’s with this in mind that Magazzino recently opened its own Research Center, which currently holds over 4,000 publications, including more than 300 rare books and hosts its first Scholar-in-Residence, Francesco Guzzetti, who is working on expanding the research on Italian Contemporary Art and on developing and participating in the public programs offered by the foundation.

    So stay tuned for more interesting events and initiatives to come.

     
  • Facts & Stories

    Dacia Maraini, Memories From a Japanese War Camp

    In her directing debut, "Haiku on a Plum Tree", Mujah Maraini-Melehi takes us along her journey to unravel her family’s history, and particularly the little-known story of their years spent in a Japanese concentration camp during World War II. It was the price the director’s grandparents (Dacia’s parents), the anthropologist Fosco Maraini and the Sicilian princess and artist Topazia Alliata, paid for refusing to sign a document adhering to the Republic of Salò, the fascist puppet state put in place during the German occupation of Italy from September 1943 to May 1945.

    An Idyllic Life Until...

    The director's grandparents moved to Japan in 1938 where Fosco Maraini conducted research. There they lived what from the numerous photographs and journal entries presented in the film appears to have been a pleasant, idyllic life, with their three daughters, Dacia, Yuki, and Toni (Mujah’s mother). Now a renown author, Dacia Maraini remembers how as a child she spoke the language fluently “better than Italian”, she went to Japanese school, had Japanese friends, felt the culture as her own, and this feeling persisted through her time in the camp and up until today.

     

    Until 1943, when officials showed up at their house demanding they sign papers declaring their allegiance to the newly instated Republic of Salò, the puppet state headed by Mussolini and controlled by Nazi Germany. Both Fosco and Topazia refused to sign. Shortly after, all five family members, including the children, now considered traitors, were taken to a Japanese prison camp, where they stayed until the end of the war, facing hunger, cold, torture and daily humiliations.

    Facing Painful Memories 

    Maraini-Melehi explains that she felt compelled to make this film in order to understand and process her family history. This project has given her and the rest of the family the opportunity to begin discussing this difficult and painful topic. Topazia, who passed away at age 102 in 2015 while Mujah was still working on the film, narrates most of the story and her drawings and diary entries appear constantly throughout the film. Dacia Maraini, Mujah’s aunt, and Toni Maraini, her mother, also appear as narrators and share their memories.

     

    The film is in fact mostly about memory, about the urgency of passing down stories which are deeply personal but also universal. The importance of talking about the past, of remembering what happened, even and especially if it is difficult, painful, and in some cases shameful, is a theme that is being increasingly discussed nowadays, in many places including Italy and other countries where certain extremist ideologies which were thought to be in the past are threatening to make a comeback.

     

    In the film, Dacia says that when her parents left Italy in ‘38, “Europe was drunk on racism.” While racism and hate may look different today, be less “outspoken” or “direct” - for example, during the discussion she remembers how in those times people theorized about race, claiming it was a scientific, provable fact that some races were superior to others - we cannot dupe ourselves into believing that it no longer exists. “Racism went out the front door and came back through the window” the author comments.

     

    The rejection of racism is a central aspect of the film. It’s what lead Fosco and Topazia to make the choice that would affect the lives of the entire family. Dacia insists that her parents’ decision not to sign in allegiance to the Republic of Salò was not a political act “they did not belong to any political party”, it was a direct consequence of the fact that they were thoroughly and unequivocally against racism.

    Memory and Hate

    Another important aspect of the film is how it emphasizes the distinction between memory and hate. Though not all the family members have the same relationship to Japan, none of them feel hatred or resentment towards the country and its people. This can also be said of the film itself, which stylistically is a celebration of Japanese culture, as it makes use of Japanese music and theatrical practices, particularly through the use of puppets and a specific type of screens belonging to a 17th century tradition which was itself long forgotten even in Japan and is now being rediscovered, making it the perfect medium for realizing a film about memory. While the use of puppets gives the viewer the possibility to project onto the film more than live actors would and thus renders the universal aspect of the Maraini family’s story.

     

    Even as a child, Dacia separated the Japanese people from the regime that incarcerated and tortured them. This subtle distinction is fundamental in order to avoid perpetuating a cycle of hate. Which is why it is so important for the people who have had such complex and difficult experiences to talk about them, to explain them (and for everyone else to listen). The author admits that, though she does mention her family’s life in Japan and the fact that they spent time in concentration camps in passing in her famous memoir Bagheria, she has never discussed it completely. “Before dying, I want to write a book specifically about this, about my experience and how I lived it as a child,” she says.

    We can’t wait to read it.

     
  • Art & Culture

    Addio, Great Master of Italian Cinema

    On Tuesday, January 19th, director Ettore Scola passed away surrounded by his wife Gigliola and his daughters Paola and Silvia at the Policlinco Hospital in Rome. He was signed in last Sunday and had been in a coma since then.

    The news of his death called many people, including celebrities like Sophia Lauren, Daniele Luchetti, Giancarlo Giannini, and Paolo Sorrentino, who worked with him and considered him a close friend, to the ceremony held today at the Casa del Cinema in his honor.

    Scola has been one of the most important figures of Italian cinema throughout the last forty years. He directed over 40 films such as ‘A Special Day’ (Una Giornata Particolare), which earned him a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film in 1977.

    His other masterpieces include ‘We All Loved Each Other So Much’ (C’eravamo tanto amati) starring Nino Manfredi, Vittorio Gassman and Stefania Sandrelli, ‘That Night in Varennes’ (1982), and ‘The Dinner’ (La Cena) from 1998.    

    Estimed both at home and abroad, Scola received five Academy Award nominations throughout his carreer and many are the people who praised him and his work. 

    Amongst them are not only members of the film industry, but also other figures including politicians like Italian President Sergio Mattarella and Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, who both recognized the important role Ettore Scola played in representing Italian society at different stages.

    His films perfectly capture the Italian social landscape of the second half of the 20th century with the emotions tied to it and all
    its complexities. 

    As Mattarella said Scola “narrated our contemporary history with extraordinary acumen and sensitivity”. His body of work can in fact be seen as a historical record of contemporary Italy, while at the same time being made up of engaging and deeply human films.

    And not only did his films provide a new way for Italians to look at and understand themselves and their history, but the international attention they received, allowed for the country to be better shown and understood abroad. It’s therefore no surprised if so many different people gathered - both physically or figuratively - to mourn his death and especially to celebrate his achievements.
  • Art & Culture

    Daniele Puppi: Minimal Devices of Multisensory Reanimation

    Daniele Puppi works with installation art, which he finds to be a more direct art form and the ideal method of creating something that can be truly experienced by the public. And that’s what the artist wants: to transmit a full experience, hence why he makes use of mixed media, working with both images and sounds.

    Sound is what he finds to be the most important part of his installations, the element that ties everything together, usually through coherence in everyday life, but in the case of his works through disruption. Sound is the first thing we perceive upon venturing in the Italian Cultural Institute, which hosted some of the artist’s works in the occasion of his entrance into the New York art scene following his reception of this year’s Gotham Prize.

    The sound comes from a piece called “Naked”. It’s like a drill, sounding intermittently, shaking a projector and therefore the projected images along with it. The sound creates a disruption but it’s also the only time during which the projected scenes evolve, intrinsically linking this sound to the visual scenes.This sound changes the entire viewing experience and Puppi is interested in exploring the public’s reaction to being presented with the unexpected.

    In a sense the artist works with contradiction, using technology in unconventional ways. Another installation present in the Institute called “Blast”, for example, projects images onto two old television monitors set on the floor in a seemingly “careless” way. The monitors become passive receivers of images but though they may appear so, they are not fully obsolete: they generate the sound.  

    Both these works are examples of what he calls “re-animated cinema”. And cinema he tells us is in fact one of his main sources of inspiration, particularly his desire to change it. For that’s what he does: Puppi takes existing scenes or films new ones, edits them and then presents them in an unusual manner, deconstructing and rearranging what to him are the three main elements: “sound, space, image”.
     

    His work is all about mixing - mixing old and new technologies, mixing visual and auditive experiences - and that’s how he manages to be so innovative, so exciting. It’s then easier to understand why he says he still hasn’t found anything quite intriguing enough for his taste since recently moving to the city.
     

    He’s certainly not thinking of giving up though. His very first US show was well received by artists and curators alike. “I’m very curious” he says, “to discover experimental art here”. Though it’s hard to find amidst the vastness of the New York art scene, and is certainly hidden behind more mainstream art forms usually found in the famed Chelsea galleries, we’re confident that it’s out there and wish him luck uncovering it.  

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